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Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest

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Somebodynobody10 said:
I have to ask @Questor , how powerful bombardments could the enemy possibly cook up if they are given time to create one, by the opinions of our allies?
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Depends on what you mean by bombardments.

It is possible to for a group of Pegasi acting in coordination to "charge" clouds with static, a method of producing more powerful and longer reaching thunderbolts. There is also the possibility of artificial tornados, which can be produced by very large numbers of Pegasi acting in concert, though these are rarely used in battle due to how unpredictable they tend to be, often causing just as much damage to the side that made them as the side they were intended to harm.

Then there's the simple option of just straight up throwing things from a great height down at your soldiers. A chair or table can kill even a Knight, especially when it's falling at terminal velocity.
 
Walliseatscheese said:
Is there likely to be some sort of internal structure that can be attacked that would make it sink, or at least disrupt control?

How large of a squad could Merlin (and his minions) teleport onto Mare-A-Thon? How large for him to make invisible for an infiltration? If he comes with?
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There is a sort of internal structure to cloud settlements, as well as architectural weaknesses. The city is built upon a sort of "foundation" of cloudstuff that is designed to be more buoyant than is typical, and serves to stabilize the city as a whole. If that foundation were significantly damaged or disrupted, the city would start to come apart.

If you were going for a simple brute-force teleportation of armed soldiers, leaving behind the casters themselves, between Merlin and all of the other Mages present you could insert a strike force of roughly 600 souls, though that would severely fatigue the magic users in question.

Making the troops difficult to notice (actually simpler to do than straight up making them invisible, affecting an individual's perception is easier than constantly bending light around one's self) would require a great deal more magical power, severely limiting the number of soldiers: less than a hundred, and the stealth would wear off after only a few minutes.

Having Merlin come with wouldn't serve a purpose if he magically exhausted himself getting everyone there, so with the help of the other mages (who would not be accompanying him in this scenario) he'd be able to teleport roughly 200 soldiers along with him. If the soldiers were stealthed, he'd only be able to take 50 or so, but the stealth would be able to last a little longer due to his being there to maintain it.

Walliseatscheese said:
How about just sending the equivalent to a Patrol to try to parlay with various farms? A large enough troop that they can't just be killed but not actually enough to deal with those security detachments?
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That could potentially work, though there is the possibility some of the more stubborn or aggressive farmers and plantation owners might try something. Highly doubtful they'd be able to actually overcome your forces but you could still lose some soldiers.
 
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So, hear me out. I got a plan.

Might be a dumb plan, but I'll try to give it a shot.

Constant platoon-level pegasi and other flyer units skirmishing attacks at the walls. Use bows and fire arrows. Make loud noises. Cause as much chaos as possible and retreat whenever the platoon started to feel the heat. We can rotate out the pegasi, but the defenders with their ground-based units have to stay up all the time to plug out all possible holes.

Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make them weak enough for the final assault where we can deliver the large number of griffins through the fortress

The downside here is that we have a low number of flyers like pegasi. Dedicated hunter units can pick them out one platoon at a time if they're competent enough.

This tactic would have been a lot better if the fortress is stuck on the ground, so it is very raw. But I think it's worth it as a starting point for a better plan.
 
taovkool said:
The downside here is that we have a low number of flyers like pegasi. Dedicated hunter units can pick them out one platoon at a time if they're competent enough.
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I think I'm missing something. Are you forgetting that griffons can also fly, or are you saying we don't have flyers with the same traits as pegasi? Apologies for the confusion! Just want to clear up your meaning.
 
PyrrosWarrior said:
I think I'm missing something. Are you forgetting that griffons can also fly, or are you saying we don't have flyers with the same traits as pegasi? Apologies for the confusion! Just want to clear up your meaning.
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...oh yeah. Griffons can fly, can't they?

I actually forgot about that part. Huh, so this dumb plan might work after all?

Edit: Let's try to put it into a more concrete form of a plan. Anyone with any ideas, feel free to pitch in.

[] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
- [] Launch a constant 24/7 low-level skirmishing attack on Mare-a-thon
- [] Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make their body and mind weak enough for the final assault
- [] Use bottled fuels and fire arrows to set buildings on fire. Intermittently switch out the direction and intensity of the attack to force the defenders to plug the gap and keep watch on every part of the castle. Target the sergeants to kill or wound. Make loud noises. Get Kaboom to deliver some very loud fireworks. Cause as much chaos as you can to deny the defenders any rest.
- [] Rotate your troops to keep them fresh. Play conservatively and keep it safe. Don't be afraid to retreat at the first sign of trouble. The plan is to cause chaos, not win the small fights.
- [] While they're at it, the skirmishing units can take note of any important intel that can be used for the final attack. Troop deployments, number and composition, supply depot, the status of the walls, etc.
- [] When the Marethonians are sufficiently worn down, launch the final attack and storm the castle.

Pegicles will probably launch some demented ace-in-the-hole, but I have no idea how to deal with that, except for keeping a close eye on the area and just prepare for shenanigans.
 
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Okay it has been twenty four hours, I am voting.

[X] Scorched Earth: On the other hand, you may not be content to simply wait for however long it takes for your enemy to get frustrated enough to attack you. Mare-a-Thon is a great fortress, but it's position in the sky means it can't grow it's own food. That task falls to the numerous farms and plantations scattered across Pegicles' territory. You can't lock down each and every one of those farms to prevent them from supplying Storm forces...but you can certainly set them on fire. Most of them are owned by Nobles loyal to Pegicles anyway, and a few even have slaves working on them, so you certainly have a justification for doing so. Of course, Griffons setting fire to the Maretonian countryside will doubtlessly paint a less than positive picture of you and your forces...

I said my reasons before and I'll stick by them, here is the post I said them in for convenience sake.
masterofmadness said:
Honestly I think this is our best approach.

We don't want to give Pegicles the initiative and we don't want to assaults his fortress like he clearly wants. The first lets him complete whatever plans he can come up with at his leisure and the second risk everything on an all out gamble that could lose it all.

He is trying to force two bad options so we need to go with the third. This plays best to our strengths and his weaknesses the best in terms of pure tactics. Pegicles for all his professionalism has a feudal army at the end of the day, the Nobles who support him are going to care about their lands being under threat. If we put start o burn them he has to deal with the two bad options of try to force his noble to sit back while the homes they care about are burned and he losses supplies or to move men out of his fortress to contest the attempts. Either aids us in the end because out strength is a superior logistic base and numbers from that. If in a skirmish he loses 10 Pegasus professionals or the food to feed 100 he can't replace them while he have an Empire back home ending us supplies as long as we control this pass safely.

The biggest drawback is the bad PR and well... at the end of the day this is a war we have not won yet. It is not a good idea to throw away good war options because they might lead to an imperfect peace you might not get.

Plus I don't think the PR is as bad as it seems, remember these are very specifically House Storm's lands we are attacking. The people who have committed far worse crimes then this by a mile to every other Maretonian by far. The people outside this region won't care as much about what we do to bring Pegicles to heel and restore order in general and many will probably spit on his grave. As for the people in this province, most of them are ones we are going to want gone anyway! The Noble loyal to house storm are basically the only group we have to punish, they won't give up slavery unless forced and have done the worst crimes by far in the war. We want the nobility of this region broken long term so they are no longer a threat and a for the rest of the people? First off any slaves we encounter can be freed then probably be sent back to safer lands with a little effort. We will be rebuilding the region anyway and I doubt the slave will hold a grudge when they now own the property of their old masters.

I don't think their is any third option we can up with better then this one. Harsh as it is this is war and sometimes the fastest way to end it is to do bad thing to some so that others might live.
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masterofmadness said:
Okay it has been twenty four hours, I am voting.
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...Oh yeah, I forgot about the moratorium.

[X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
- [X] Launch a constant 24/7 low-level skirmishing attack on Mare-a-thon
- [X] Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make their body and mind weak enough for the final assault
- [X] Use bottled fuels and fire arrows to set buildings on fire. Intermittently switch out the direction and intensity of the attack to force the defenders to plug the gap and keep watch on every part of the castle. Target the sergeants to kill or wound. Make loud noises. Get Kaboom to deliver some very loud fireworks. Cause as much chaos as you can to deny the defenders any rest.
- [X] Rotate your troops to keep them fresh. Play conservatively and keep it safe. Don't be afraid to retreat at the first sign of trouble. The plan is to cause chaos, not win the small fights.
- [X] While they're at it, the skirmishing units can take note of any important intel that can be used for the final attack. Troop deployments, number and composition, supply depot, the status of the walls, etc.
- [X] When the Marethonians are sufficiently worn down, launch the final attack and storm the castle.
 
Was that Ursa major mutation roll a type of joke?

Because silly dice rolls are fun.

We are learning a lot from the battle with the Ursa Major though, as we could of been ruined without magical help.
 
[X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work

Can we also throw constant parties and sing songs?
Have a who can roar the most like an Ursa Major contest?
Shoot arrows with rude messages carved on them? Or just something like 'BOOM'?
 
Questor said:
There is a sort of internal structure to cloud settlements, as well as architectural weaknesses. The city is built upon a sort of "foundation" of cloudstuff that is designed to be more buoyant than is typical, and serves to stabilize the city as a whole. If that foundation were significantly damaged or disrupted, the city would start to come apart.

If you were going for a simple brute-force teleportation of armed soldiers, leaving behind the casters themselves, between Merlin and all of the other Mages present you could insert a strike force of roughly 600 souls, though that would severely fatigue the magic users in question.

Making the troops difficult to notice (actually simpler to do than straight up making them invisible, affecting an individual's perception is easier than constantly bending light around one's self) would require a great deal more magical power, severely limiting the number of soldiers: less than a hundred, and the stealth would wear off after only a few minutes.

Having Merlin come with wouldn't serve a purpose if he magically exhausted himself getting everyone there, so with the help of the other mages (who would not be accompanying him in this scenario) he'd be able to teleport roughly 200 soldiers along with him. If the soldiers were stealthed, he'd only be able to take 50 or so, but the stealth would be able to last a little longer due to his being there to maintain it.
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mh.. there's definitely some merit to this idea.

How hard would it be to also add a return trip, with or without Merlin being there with them? Instead of making a single, big attack, we could potentially have small teams being sent every few days to cause as much damage as possible (attack sleeping soldiers, food stores, the cloud's base, the officers...), before being teleported back.

It would be a heavy hit to enemy morale (they'd NEVER be safe), and might push them to give up defense and attack us of their own initiative.

Downside is that, if they attack while mages are tired/exhausted, we obviously don't get to use them... but in open battle our artillery would probably make up for them.

taovkool said:
So, hear me out. I got a plan.

Might be a dumb plan, but I'll try to give it a shot.

Constant platoon-level pegasi and other flyer units skirmishing attacks at the walls. Use bows and fire arrows. Make loud noises. Cause as much chaos as possible and retreat whenever the platoon started to feel the heat. We can rotate out the pegasi, but the defenders with their ground-based units have to stay up all the time to plug out all possible holes.

Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make them weak enough for the final assault where we can deliver the large number of griffins through the fortress

The downside here is that we have a low number of flyers like pegasi. Dedicated hunter units can pick them out one platoon at a time if they're competent enough.

This tactic would have been a lot better if the fortress is stuck on the ground, so it is very raw. But I think it's worth it as a starting point for a better plan.
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Even better, add the "teleported soldiers doing stealthy sabotage" while the pegasi/gryphon platoons are distracting them! While the enemy soldiers are (presumably) at the walls/Edges of the city, we teleport them in the MIDDLE of it, hopefully to destroy stores of food, burning things, attacking unprepared soldiers and/or officers, maybe planting bombs if we can teleport them there...
 
I'm afraid to ask, but I have to ask. @Questor Is it possible for the pegasi to charge the entire city of Mare a Thon for extra strength lighting bolts?

We might have to deal with Pegicles having overwhelming artillery support from lightning if they can. That might even be his surprise for this battle, the reveal that it's a fully armed and operational battle station city.

Edit:
[X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
 
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We may also want to have some volunteers from among our Maretonian allies disguise themselves as House Storm forces. We then stage a chase against them, making it look like they actually are House Storm forces, in the hopes that Mare-a-Thon will open the gate to receive the fleeing "House Storm soldiers" into the city (the only problem with this idea is that Pegicles is ruthless enough that he could well decide that he won't allow people into the city, even if it seems like they are allies/his own forces).
 
Mycielhasbroken said:
Oh sorry I thought it was on the ground.
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eh, don't worry.


short version, it's a cloud city that can actually move (though very slowly). The bigger problem for us is that it can move vertically too, so it will easily be out of range of our artillery.

We're discussing options, including capturing farms and farmers in the area to deprive the Pegasi of food, harassing them to lower their morale, possibly teleporting small teams in the city with or without the benefits of "stealth spells", maybe teleporting explosives...

mh... actually, we could probably disrupt the cloud's "base" with enough orichalcum... maybe if we sent the blackguard, with their black steel armours..?

...ah, wait, the orichalcum itself would make the teleportation impossible (or at least much more difficult)...
 
taovkool said:
...Oh yeah, I forgot about the moratorium.

[X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
- [X] Launch a constant 24/7 low-level skirmishing attack on Mare-a-thon
- [X] Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make their body and mind weak enough for the final assault
- [X] Use bottled fuels and fire arrows to set buildings on fire. Intermittently switch out the direction and intensity of the attack to force the defenders to plug the gap and keep watch on every part of the castle. Target the sergeants to kill or wound. Make loud noises. Get Kaboom to deliver some very loud fireworks. Cause as much chaos as you can to deny the defenders any rest.
- [X] Rotate your troops to keep them fresh. Play conservatively and keep it safe. Don't be afraid to retreat at the first sign of trouble. The plan is to cause chaos, not win the small fights.
- [X] While they're at it, the skirmishing units can take note of any important intel that can be used for the final attack. Troop deployments, number and composition, supply depot, the status of the walls, etc.
- [X] When the Marethonians are sufficiently worn down, launch the final attack and storm the castle.
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This skirmish seems like a uber-risky plan considering how the flying city is made of clouds and could possibly hold enough long-ranged thunder attacks to gut skirmishing forces.
Further.
The city is made of cloud cover. Do you think clouds are flammable?


[X] Dig In: Park your army within visual range of the city, put it to siege, and wait. With Pegicles forces concentrated as they are, they have to be consuming a great deal of supplies. Supplies that he will find difficult to replenish with his city in an isolated area of the nation, and an army outside ready to intercept any shipments he might try to sneak through. Despite having travelled hundreds of miles, your supply situation is actually better than his! All you have to do is wait him out, and eventually, he'll have no choice but to sally forth from his city to attack you, forcing him to give up the advantage of its defenses.
 
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